One Chicago girl's love of all things global, colorful and flavorful.

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About me

I’m Erin. I’m a farm girl at heart, a city girl by residence, and a sucker for trying new flavors. Music is my background, marketing is my day job, and food is my passion. I first started cooking at age 5, when my daddy taught me how to make scrambled eggs and (burnt) toast. Ever since then, I’ve soaked up hundreds of family recipes, countless friends’ tips, and so much Food Network-watching that it probably adds up to at least a year of my life. Let’s just say that I have a little bit of a healthy obsession with food.

My years as an undergrad in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago left me a bit spoiled. If you’re not familiar with that area, suffice it to say that it is basically stuffed right up to its outer borders with fabulous eateries serving foods from all over the world. And, being the shameless foodie that I am, I of course had to sample as many as possible.

But that wasn’t enough — I wanted to know how to make my favorites in my own kitchen. So I started experimenting. And when first- and second-generation friends of mind began to tell me that “you cook like my grandmother,” or “this tastes like home!”, I knew I had finally “arrived.”

But even that still wasn’t quite cutting it for me. Much like my Nana (my dad’s mother, who happens to make the best lasagna in the world, among other things!), food is my love language. Cooking, for me, is ultimately only as fun as the people I get to share it with.

As I’ve shared, I’ve been delighted to discover that people don’t run away from my cooking — and often have even been asking for the recipes! I’m the kind of cook who guesstimates roughly 95% of anything I ever do in the kitchen, so that means I’m going to have to start paying a little more attention and writing things down. That’s where this blog comes in!

At the end of the day, though, food is about so much more than just a full stomach. I’m not the first person to say it, and it may sound really cheesy, but food is first and foremost about community. We inhabit a big world, and we may not always agree with everyone else in it, but at the end of the day, all 7 billion of us have at least one thing in common: everybody needs to eat. The delicious flavors from around the world that I’ve come to love are only half as special as the beautiful people and cultures that brought them to the table. Learning to treasure the foods of the globe is one small (and tasty) step towards appreciating the people of the globe, as they were made to be appreciated. The world could use a little more love, I think, and what better way to make it happen than by sharing a meal together?

I certainly make no claims to authenticity in every dish. I’m just an amateur cook doing her best to approximate the many global flavors I’ve grown to love, and sharing what I’ve learned in case it can help you spice up your own dinner table. Thanks for reading, and happy eating! 🙂